The Labor Movement's New Blood

'Worker centers' stage strikes with few actual employees and do an end-run around federal laws governing unions.

By

Richard Berman

Sept. 12, 2013 7:13 p.m. ET

On Monday the AFL-CIO voted near-unanimously to incorporate nonunion affiliates known as "worker centers" into its ranks. The impetus behind this move is what the federation's president, Richard Trumka, has called the labor movement's "crisis"—the percentage of the workforce that is unionized, 11.3%, is at a 97-year low.

Worker centers have been around for decades but more recently coalesced into a widespread movement. They attracted public attention this summer by staging nationwide "strikes"...